134 



THE POPULAE EDUCATOR 



which is a little water, the oxygen of the air in the jar partly 

 becomes ozone. 



This body is also formed when electric sparks pass between 

 two points. The sulphurous smell in the neighbourhood of a 

 strong electric machine, or of a flash of lightning, is the peculiar 

 smell of ozone. Ozone is a very powerful oxidising agent. It 

 can even separate the iodine from the compound potassium 

 iodide forming potash and liberating the iodine. This fact 

 has been used as a test for ozone. Iodine makes a blue com- 

 pound with starch, so that if a piece of paper be dipped in a 

 mixture of starch paste and potassium iodide, if any ozone be 

 present the paper becomes blue. This test alone, however, is 

 not decisive, lor nitric acid, which is sometimes found in the air, 

 will do the same thing. It has been said that the health of a 

 district depends upon the quantity of ozone in the atmosphere 

 but this fact is not satisfactorily established. Since it is a great 

 oxidiser it is a powerful bleacher, for by oxidising the colouring 

 matter it destroys it. It is hoped to apply it to the bleaching 

 of sugar, which has hitherto been effected by charred blood. 

 A powerful magneto-electric machine has lately been sent out to 

 the West Indies to produce ozone, wherewith to bleach sugar. 

 Ozone was discovered by Professor Schonbein, of Basle, to whose 

 genius we also owe gun-cotton. 



LESSONS IN ENGLISH. XVIII. 



SUFFIXES (continued). 



WORDS have been curiously formed by abbreviation; the word 

 omnibus affords an instance : derived from the Latin " omnibus," 

 the dative case of the plural number of the Latin adjective omnis, 

 all, and so signifying for all that is, every man's carriage the 

 word has been shortened into bus, and so it is now generally 

 termed in common parlance. Mob appears to have been formed 

 in the same way. What is now called the mob used to be called 

 the rabble. But as the rabble are mobile vulgus, a fickle crew, 

 so were they called mobile vulgus, and by contraction, mob. 

 Still mob and rabble are not identical. Rabble is the general 

 term, the class, and mob is a collection of persons belonging to 

 that class. Palsy is a contracted form of the now more fashion- 

 able paralysis. Between alms and eleemosynary there would 

 seem to be no connection ; both, however, come from the same 

 Greek term, and the former is only a shortened form of the 

 root from which the latter is derived. Well do we remember 

 kickshaws, a term of our youthful days, used to signify some- 

 thing contemptible. Little did we then suspect that it was 

 only the English way of pronouncing the French quclque chose ; 

 i.e., something, contemptuously travestied to mimic and ridicule 

 French prisoners in England. 



Kin, from the Anglo-Saxon cyn, kin, offspring, son, signifies 

 the son of; as in Wilfci/i (Wilkins) ; seen in another form 

 namely, Wilson. Kin, from its signification, has also a diminu- 

 tive force ; as in lambkin (a lamb's child), or little lamb. What 

 is little is dear, hence diminutives are terms of endearment. 

 But what is little may be despised. Sometimes, therefore, 

 diminutives imply contempt ; as in manifcin. 



" This is a dear maniltin to you, Sir Toby." Shakespeare. 



Le (see el), among the suffixes already given. 



Les, from the Anglo-Saxon lass (German, los, destitute of), has 

 not a comparative but a negative force ; as, an Ises twentig, 

 one less twenty, or, as we should say, twenty minus one. Hence 

 it appears that the idea of Jess is privation or negation. Con- 

 sequently less, the comparative of little, is altogether a different 

 word. And thus we are also led to understand the true force 

 of less when employed as a suffix; as, motionless, or without 

 motion; deathless, free from death. Two negatives thus make 

 a positive : death, the privation of life, and less, the negation of 

 death, combine to declare the idea of ever-enduring existence, 

 the most positive, the most real, the most permanent of all con- 

 ceivable things, the very essence of Deity ; life itself. 



Let, according to Latham, " seems to be double, and to consist 

 of the Gothic diminutive I, and the French diminutive t." It 

 is found in streamlei, iaxtlet, hamZei (Anglo-Saxon, ham, home ; 

 as in hamstede, liomestead). 



Ling, of Saxon origin, denotes descent, and hence offspring ; 

 also that which is little, and that which is beloved ; e.g., d&rling 

 (dear child), gosling (little goose), nestling. Hireling is properly 

 a child of hire , a person whose services are obtained by hire. 



" The idea of contempt " ascribed to it by Latham does not 

 necessarily, for it did not originally, belong to the word. 



" I will be a swift witness against those that defraud the hireling in 

 his wages." Malacbi iii. 5 (compare Job vii. 1, 2 ; xiv. 6). 



Stripiingr may be connected with the Latin stirpes, stirps, 

 offshoot ; so that stripling is a little branch, a youngster. 

 " He is but an yonglyng, 

 A tall, worthy stryplyng." Skelton. 



The last line shows that nothing contemptuous belonged to the 

 word in the olden time. Consult the ensuing : 



" Now a stripling cherub he appears, 

 Not of the prime, yet such as in his face 

 Youth smiled celestial." Milton, " Paradise Lost." 



Ly, a termination of Saxon origin, having the force of our like, 

 and so forming an adjective or an adverb ; as childlike, childly, 

 in German kindZic/i ; manlike, manly, manlich. When ly is added 

 to a noun, it forms an adjective, as love, loveZy; when it is added 

 to an adjective, it forms an adverb, as wise, -wisely. Such a 

 formation as " holily " (1 Thess. ii. 10) is to be avoided for the 

 sake of euphony. 



Ment, from the Latin mentum (as in ornamenfawn, an ornament; 

 adjumenfwm, an assistance), through the French ment (as in the 

 French mandement, or Latin mandatum, a command), is a suffix 

 which denotes the result of the act indicated in the verb from 

 which the noun is derived : thus, velo means I veil or cover ; and 

 velamen or velamentum is a veil or covering ; so aliment (from 

 the Latin alo, I nourish) is a means of nourishing, nourishment. 

 Hence, devotement properly indicates not the act, but the result; 

 not the doing, but the state of feeling which ensues from the doing, 

 the devotion. In practice, however, the usage seems reversed. 

 " Her (Iphigenia) devotement was the demand of Apollo." Hurd. 



" Oh, how loud 



It calls devotion genuine growth of night ! 

 Demotion .' daughter of Astronomy ! 

 An undevout astronomer is mad." 



Young, " The Complaint." 



Mony, as in alimony, sanctimony, a Latin termination (as in 

 parsimonia, sparingness ; and matrimonium, the conditian of a 

 mother, matrimony, not in great use) which denotes a conse- 

 quence, as in testimony, the result of the act of testis, a witness. 



Ness, as found in littleness, nothingness, is a Saxon suffix, 

 signifying the abstract qualify. If we compare littleness with 

 the French petitesse (Old English nesse), and take in other 

 words, as tendresse, tenderness, we are led to conjecture that 

 the n is only a connecting consonant, and that ess or esse in 

 both French and English are the same. Consider also the 

 Anglo-Saxon sarenes, soreness, that is sorrow ; gelicness, likeness; 

 heardnes, hardness ; micelness, muchness, that is greatness ; and 

 yon find the same form in the root of our language. If, how- 

 ever, the n is not an essential part of the word, then the ness 

 or rather ess has no connection with ness in such words as 

 Dungeness, Sheemess, and other proper names, names of places. 

 In these the ness comes from the German nase, and the Anglo- 

 Saxon nese, and signifies nose; that is, a headland or promontory. 



" About six of the clock at night the wind vered to the south-west; 

 and we weighed anker, and bare cleere of the ness, and then set our 

 course north-east and by north until midnight, being then clear of the 

 Yarmouth sands." Halduyt. 



Ock. as in hillock, a diminutive ; so that hillock is a little hill. 

 So bullock originally meant a young bull or calf; compare Isaiah 

 xi. 6 with Jer. xxxi. 18, where calf and bullock arc the renderings 

 of the same Hebrew term. In the suffix ock the e sound is the 

 essential element, the k being merely an affair of spelling, and 

 the o (probably) a connecting vowel. Thus regarded, we find 

 the origin of our diminutive c in the Latin diminutive c, as seen 

 in recula (res, a thing), specula (spes, hope), nubecula (nubes, a. 

 cloud), vulpecula (vulpes, a fox), etc. Another form of bullock 

 is bulc/iin, obviously buU's-fcwi, that is, bull's child, as in the 

 Hebrew, " steer, the son of a bull," for a bullock or calf (Exod. 

 xxix. 1 ; Lev. iv. 3). 



" And better yet than this, a 'bulc.liin, two years old. 

 A curled pate calf it is, and oft could have been sold." 



Dray ton, " PolyolHou. " 



Oon, or on, an augmentive ; as in balloon, or great ball. The 

 termination con, or on, comes to us from the Italian, but is ori 

 ginally from the Latin ; as seen in naso, a man with a large noses 



